I think I need to rant a little, but with a purpose. Maybe to make a sense of this mess and for someone else to see where I'm going wrong or to just steer me onto the right path.

This is the deal. I had an awakening, well in actuality it was an awakening out of the 'me' that I thought i was. I didn't fully understand it at the time and didn't really understand the concept of there being no me altogether. The awakening felt more like seeing right through the ego so I didn't see through the self entirely. Over time this all slipped away and I descended back into selfing, unconsciousness, and identification with pain and suffering.

I don't know how to get back out of it. I know i'm living a lie. A very uncomfortable lie, yet I'm scared to see through the lie again because it has brought up so much fear that I find it really hard to deal with. As a result I feel so conflicted about everything. everything feels so effortful, so emotional, so fearful. I feel lost and don't know what direction to go. Ideally I would meditate daily, challenge all my thoughts and beliefs, be in the now, be present, not believe thoughts, not identify with thoughts and emotions, and just be. But I find it all so effortful, as I'm trying to force it all. Nothing seems to work or even make me feel better. I am anxious and/or emotional daily.

Intellectually I understand a lot, although it also feels like I understand very little because it hasn't been validated in experience. So I know that ultimately it is the ego that wants to feel better, that wants to be enlightened. And i know the ego cannot be, not in a real way. So then the mind says, this cant happpen because its the ego that wants these things while at the same time it is the ego that is creating them. so i just go around in circles. I have conflicts like these all time that keep me trapped in thought. Another regular one is to do with thought. I have a negative thought and understand that it is the ego, yet i can't NOT disbelieve it. The identification with thought is automatic, and I tell myself to not believe it, to challenge it, to see the truth in it, but it just draws the ego into more egoic thought.

I work really hard on trying to surrender, to accept, to let go. But find the habitual and circular patterns of thinking impossible to overcome. I try not to fight with the ego but to allow things to be. But it feels somewhat superficial, like i can never genuinely let go. It drains so much energy I don't have much left to relax, to meditate, to challenge thoughts and beliefs, to do any practice. Ultimately i know this isn;t for the ego but I feel no positivity or trust on this journey anymore, I don't have any positive experiences, just negative. I feel beat down and broken.

I don't know what I am supposed to do anymore. Practice? Meditate? My attention is poor and i find it difficullt to fully know what is going on inside my head. I will have on ethought one moment and an opposing one the next. Where is the reset button??! What do I need to do?

ZenofCaos wrote:I work really hard on trying to surrender, to accept, to let go. But find the habitual and circular patterns of thinking impossible to overcome. I try not to fight with the ego but to allow things to be. But it feels somewhat superficial, like i can never genuinely let go. It drains so much energy I don't have much left to relax, to meditate, to challenge thoughts and beliefs, to do any practice. Ultimately i know this isn;t for the ego but I feel no positivity or trust on this journey anymore, I don't have any positive experiences, just negative. I feel beat down and broken.

There is the problem...you're not accepting & surrendering... If you' still believe "thinking" is something you can overcome.

Acceptance & surrender is when you allow stuff to just happen without trying to control stuff. You allow things to just happen on their own steam. Like breathing.

It's ok to control stuff like what time you set the alarm lock in the morning... But you can't control feelings, emotions or physical sensations or thoughts from arising. That battle you won't win. It's like trying to hold your breath.... You will eventually need to let go and let the breathing do its thing. So let go and allow thoughts to arise, sensations to sense and feelings to feel. These operations don't need your left hemisphere's analysis & controlling ways....the right hemisphere will look after these functions with great skill without the lefts input.

Hi ZOC. I can feel your frustration here. I well know that, and thankfully it is reducing where now quite somewhat. I will try to express the fledgling experience/understanding here.

ZenOfchaos wrote:Another suffering ego with a question.

I think I need to rant a little, but with a purpose. Maybe to make a sense of this mess and for someone else to see where I'm going wrong or to just steer me onto the right path.

You have wrongly identified yourself ZOC. You do not have any questions, only thought does.

This is the deal. I had an awakening, well in actuality it was an awakening out of the 'me' that I thought i was. I didn't fully understand it at the time and didn't really understand the concept of there being no me altogether. The awakening felt more like seeing right through the ego so I didn't see through the self entirely. Over time this all slipped away and I descended back into selfing, unconsciousness, and identification with pain and suffering.

You are trying to understand 'where you are' and 'what you are' with thought (which results in cycling) rather than via direct experience. What you are is the knowingknown now and now and now. Experienceexperiencing is you. No separation between knowing and known, experience and experiencing.

I don't know how to get back out of it. I know i'm living a lie. A very uncomfortable lie, yet I'm scared to see through the lie again because it has brought up so much fear that I find it really hard to deal with. As a result I feel so conflicted about everything. everything feels so effortful, so emotional, so fearful. I feel lost and don't know what direction to go. Ideally I would meditate daily, challenge all my thoughts and beliefs, be in the now, be present, not believe thoughts, not identify with thoughts and emotions, and just be. But I find it all so effortful, as I'm trying to force it all. Nothing seems to work or even make me feel better. I am anxious and/or emotional daily.

You are identiying as thought. You imagine yourself as thinking and doing things (only thought does this), whereas in actuality you are the knowing of this. The knowing and the known are not separate; it, you, are the knowingknown, the experienceexperiencing

Intellectually I understand a lot, although it also feels like I understand very little because it hasn't been validated in experience. So I know that ultimately it is the ego that wants to feel better, that wants to be enlightened. And i know the ego cannot be, not in a real way. So then the mind says, this cant happpen because its the ego that wants these things while at the same time it is the ego that is creating them. so i just go around in circles. I have conflicts like these all time that keep me trapped in thought. Another regular one is to do with thought. I have a negative thought and understand that it is the ego, yet i can't NOT disbelieve it. The identification with thought is automatic, and I tell myself to not believe it, to challenge it, to see the truth in it, but it just draws the ego into more egoic thought.

You are trying to separate the knower from the known, and this can only be done by going into (cycles of) thought. Without going into thought, but merely using it to report experience, what is your direct experience?

I work really hard on trying to surrender, to accept, to let go. But find the habitual and circular patterns of thinking impossible to overcome. I try not to fight with the ego but to allow things to be. But it feels somewhat superficial, like i can never genuinely let go. It drains so much energy I don't have much left to relax, to meditate, to challenge thoughts and beliefs, to do any practice. Ultimately i know this isn;t for the ego but I feel no positivity or trust on this journey anymore, I don't have any positive experiences, just negative. I feel beat down and broken.

What is trying to surrender is what you think you are. It is only a thought. You are not what you think you are.

I don't know what I am supposed to do anymore. Practice? Meditate? My attention is poor and i find it difficullt to fully know what is going on inside my head. I will have on ethought one moment and an opposing one the next. Where is the reset button??! What do I need to do?

Notice that the knowing/experiencing of everything experienced now and now and now is the experiencing of experience. This is direct experience.

I suffered from Agoraphobia....and the road to AgoraphobiaIs paved with Safety Behaviours. In other words, control and analysis by the thinking mind.

What I found out was the more safety behaviours deployed the greater the suffering I had to endure. I was convinced early on that I needed to analyse & control situations in order to protect myself. How wrong I was!

If you want to live in the present moment you have to stop analysing & controlling situations & your behaviours. Don't anticipate every thing that is going to happen. Just do things & go to situations with an empty mind & an attitude of surrender and acceptance. This kind of approach puts the anxious mind out of a job. Anxiety can't function if you're not anticipating things & deploying safety behaviours.

What I did not recognise 6 years ago, was that control & analysis and deployment of safety behaviours was fuel for the anxious thinker. It's a vicious cycle that becomes utter perplexing until you see the cycle play out.

One would expect that analysis and playing it safe should lead to a more peaceful existence...but it doesn't. It's the opposite in fact. The more safe behaviours you deploy the more anxious you become. Until you see the anxiety trick for what it is, you will continue to go in the opposite direction to where you want to be going!

So my advice to you is stop analysing & controlling your life... Invite surrender and acceptance into your life and just let things play out for a while. You will be pleasantly surprised to find how smooth things go when the controller, analyser & safety inspector gets out of the way!

This is the deal. I had an awakening, well in actuality it was an awakening out of the 'me' that I thought i was. I didn't fully understand it at the time and didn't really understand the concept of there being no me altogether

In the Urantia Book it says that there are many level of spiritual beings and many functions and levels of creation.

God or the Universal Father - the Prime Creator and original source gives All to All as is His nature. The joy of creation is extended as far as possible and as much as possible, and very much is possible. The creation of galaxies is but a triviality compared to one task He retains exclusively.

That is the creation of Personality. Every personality is unique in all creation and in all time is from the same source - Gods heart.

A galaxy is a means to an end. A means for the experience and creation of personality.

Well, bless your heart Kutto-- Thank you for that--- Yes, the personality is a gift from God, each of us unique and individual and each being true to their own selfhood, finding the very core of their being, the Light of God's Love, is the very self of who you are ---To find this and be your self, this is the true place where our joy of Life blooms and grows.

There was another post around here today that said something about the personality needs to die---It made me so sad to read that---I never got back that post----was at work all day---then forgot about it--- But, that precept is not right and should not be thought to be anything to do the most important reason we all here in the world---our own self-disovery---which most assuredly includes the personality; your authentic Self, the Self you were before the covering up and covering over of your True Self--- Finding your self, that childlike, pristine, pure self, unique, divine self-- that is the Joyful part of all this, you get to be yourself, and that feels so very powerful, comfortable, easy, deeply full and rich and right and good.

You are not finished, until you play in that meadow and live there. You can, you know. But only you can take yourself there.